The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-07-30

There lately died in Scotland min
lister whose fame was in all its church
es, and Professor whose influence for
good was very marked among the stu
dents of the "body'' to which he be-
longed.
Shortly before his death, DIR. Ker
had completed compilation which can
not fail to be interesting to a large
number of people. Good as it Island
it is very good-it is perhaps more val
liable for the field it opens up and the
study it suggests, than for its own in
trinsic merits, great as these are, be-
cause this collection of illustrations of
the part the Psalms have played in
history and biography can only be re-
garded as the first sheaf of gleanings
from very abundant harvest-feld.
1t is curious to note that the sixth
Psalm is associated with such strangely
different people as Catherine de Medici,
Elizabeth Charlotte, niece of Sophia,
Electress of Hanover, and wife of the
Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV,
Mrs. Carlyle, John Calvin, and Robert
Rolloch, first Principal of the Univers-
ity of Edinburgh.
The goth Psalm was called by the
late Sir James Y. Simpson, and his
brothers and sisters, Mothers Psalm"
When she was hard pressed with think
ing and toiling, and could not see her
way Through" she used to sit down
and repeat it, and rise refreshed. When
Edward Irving was on his deathbed, he
repeated the 23d Psalm in Hebrew, and
the well-known fourth verse were the
dying words of Sir William Hamilton.
The 25th Psalm was the dying song of
Margaret Wilson, one of the Wigton
martyrs. The fifth verse of the 31st
Psalm, Unto thine hand I commit my
spirit" has naturally been the closing
utterance of many life, sanctified as
it is by being one Of the seven sayings
on the Cross. 1.-THE Lord himself gave
the word, and great has been the COM
pany of those that published it," "It
was the parting word Of Luther, of
Knox, of John Huss, of Jerome of
Prague, of Julian Palmer, one of the
noted martyrs in the reign of the Eng
lish Mary, Of Francis Teissier, the first
martyr of the Desert who assembled
the scaffold singing it in 1856, and Of
countless more" The second verse of
the 32d Psalm contains the spiritual
ideal which quaint old Izaak Walton set
up for the model Of his life. In closing
his biography of Bishop Sanderson, he
says: otis now too late to wish that
my life may be like his, for am in the
eighty-fifth year of my age but hum
bly, beseech Almighty God that my
death may be, and / earnestly beg of
every reader to say, Amen Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord impu-
teth not iniquity, and in whose spirit
there is no guile.'"
Thomas Fuller tells how Queen Mary
of England erected again the hospital
of the Savoy, which had been founded
by her grandfather, Henry VII; and
how her maids of honor, out of their
own wardrobe, furnished it with beds,
blankets and sheets; and he adds {:
"Were any of these ladies still alive,
would pray for them in the language of
the Psalmist, The Lord make all their
bed in their sickness" Psalm xii, v. 81
And he is good bedmaker indeed, who
can and will make it fit the person and
please the patient. But seeing such are
all long since deceased, it will be no
superstition to praise God for their
piety and commend their practice to
the imitation Of posterity." The 46th
Psalm and the 37th are respectively the
basisof Luther's ''Eine teste Burg ist un-
ser Gott," and Paul Gerhardt's ''Betiehl
du define Wege," The seventh verse of
the 51st Psalm has touching associa-
ton. DR.. Ker says; Probably the
northernmost grave on the surface of
the earth is one made for member Of
the expedition of Sir George Mares to
the Arctic Sea, in the ship Alert 1t
is near Cape Beechy, on the brow of a
hill covered with snow, and command
ing a view of crowded masses of ice
which stretch away into the mysterious
Northern Ocean, where, hung like
lamp over the door of the unknown,
shines the Polar Star. A large stone
covers the dead, and on copper tablet
at the head the words are engraved
wash me, and 1 shall be whittier than
snow.'" Darnley read the 55th Psalm
on the night of his murder.-The Spec
tdt0r.
DOCTRINAL PREACHING.